Spaceborne sensor and communications platforms, such as unmanned space satellites, are typically volume and mass limited due to the size and thrust limitations of related space/orbital launch vehicles. As such, space satellites tend to allocate volume and mass to their primary mission and often do not have excess space for dedicated optical self-monitoring systems, such as additional cameras and camera booms to position and aim a camera back at the satellite and monitor various aspects of its own operational status, such as deployment of solar panels, antennas, or heat radiators, mechanical damage caused by micrometeorite impacts and/or launch problems, and the evolution of such operational status over time. In addition to the general dearth of positive publicity opportunities, lack of such monitoring and a known and reliable operational status can lead to a number of different types of premature mission failure. Thus, there is a need in the art for methodologies to reliably generate self-imagery of an object, particularly in situations where manual intervention and monitoring is expensive or impossible, as is the case with almost all unmanned space satellites.